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I don’t usually write about political issues. But I do want to weigh in on the recent developments in the leaks about the NSA and Edward Snowden.
I am outraged that the NSA has been collecting data from telephone call and emails from American citizens in the name of stopping terrorists. It seems to me that there are other means of stopping terrorists other than a wholesale eavesdropping on the telephone calls and monitoring the emails of millions of private American citizens. It’s an invasion of our privacy. Have these people never heard of wiretaps? Those used to be required to access telephone calls. Now they have access to all our telephone records and all our emails. They aren’t even looking for certain key words. They are shifting through everything. You have no privacy. You should be as outraged as I am.
As for Edward Snowden, I think he is a hero. We would not know that this invasion of our privacy was going on if not for him. He had the guts to put his own freedom at risk to tell us what the government was up to. He is not a traitor or a spy. He may be a thief, as he did take some material from the NSA. But he let people know what is really going on at the NSA. He felt he had an obligation to let people know what was happening to their telephone calls and their emails. He has had to go into hiding, to go on the run, to find a place to hide because of the stand he took. I for one am glad of what he did. I hope he gets away with his freedom.
As I write this post, Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong and is on a plane bound for Russia. From there it is not known where he will go. Some countries mentioned are Cuba, Venezuela, or Iceland. Wherever he goes, I hope he’ll be welcomed. I hope he’ll find a home. I hope he can be happy and find peace. He did the right thing. He did a service to the American people and also to the British people. I am grateful to him.
What the NSA did is despicable. Spying on your own people is wrong. Edward Snowden was right to tell the American people what their government was doing to them. I don’t usually right about these issues, but this is something I feel strongly about and so here are my thoughts about it today. Not everyone will agree with me. But this is what I believe.
